


capax infiniti

by king_or_2_queens



Series: a fabella de violaceus [5]
Category: Assassination Classroom
Genre: Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Kissing, M/M, Or close enough, Zero-gravity sex, cuteness, gays, gratuitous lifting of quotes, i don't know how actual space works, not sorry, sorry - Freeform, space
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-07
Updated: 2018-05-07
Packaged: 2019-05-03 10:33:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14567118
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/king_or_2_queens/pseuds/king_or_2_queens
Summary: As he looked out of that tiny window into the vast expanse of the universe, Nagisa thought,I don’t think it gets any more alone than this.or,what may or may not have happened while Nagisa and Karma were in space together.





	capax infiniti

**Author's Note:**

> This is for those of you who are subscribed for Assassination Classroom (which is my fave, and will be for the forseeable future ❤) and are still waiting on me to start publishing a long fic, lol. Sorry, school killed me, but I have started it. And I'm done for the year, so hopefully I can now be a writing machine ^_^
> 
> Could plausibly occur in any preceding universe but that of occulta hominum. 
> 
> Here’s some cuteness to tide you over! :*

  _ **a story in violet:** holding the infinite_

* * *

 

Class 3-E stood silently before the towering hunk of metal that was meant to take two dummies to space. The prospect of leaving Earth behind and disappearing into that inky black, silent night, even if only for a moment or two, was daunting. Nagisa swallowed.

“I still want to go,” Itona said bluntly, cutting through the silence. “For a mecha-lover like me, this is all I could ever want.”

But then Itona extended a hand, his facial expression as earnest as Nagisa had ever seen it. “Just this once, I’ll hold back – because I think that Nagisa and Karma should go.”

 _Me?_ Nagisa thought to himself, anxiety causing sweat to bead on his forehead. He turned his head to look up at the huge rocket that their class was gathered around.

He’d worked so hard to get the class to consider other avenues besides assassination when it came to Koro-sensei, but he never would have guessed that his classmates would nominate him to ride into _space_ as a result.

“What?” Karma replied, hands planted on his hips. “I’m not a fan of doing risky challenges just because someone asked me to.”

“Besides,” he continued, pointing towards Terasaka, “We can just have Terasaka go with one of the dummies – even if the flight fails, there’ll be no loss!”

The class laughed, but Nagisa could see the genuine nervousness in the pinch of Karma’s eyebrows and the set of his shoulders, even with the stealth suit on.

 “Antagonistic, combat-oriented Karma-kun paired with calm, assassination-oriented Nagisa-kun?” Kataoka mused, planting a supportive hand on Karma’s shoulder. “You guys might actually make a perfect team for hijacking the space station.”

Looking over at Itona, who was sighing, seeming a little put-out at not being able to go flying, Nagisa felt a sudden sense of pride in his class – in their strength, in their sacrifice, in their wit, and in their beauty.

Terasaka stomped over to thump an irritated-looking Karma on the chest. “It’s because the two of _you_ were punching each other’s brains out that we’re all friends again,” he snapped. “So take some goddamn responsibility and be our vanguard on this.”

Karma opened his mouth, appearing ready to disagree, but Nagisa reached out to tap his arm. The words faltered on Karma’s lips.

“Karma, let’s do it,” he said with a small, encouraging smile. Pointing up to the stars, Nagisa continued, “When it comes to a graduation field trip, nothing could be better than going to space with a friend, right?”

Karma’s face softened at that, and he eventually huffed out a small sigh. “Fine, fine,” he agreed. “I guess that I _did_ promise to start listening to you.”

He snatched the dummy suit out of Muramatsu’s hands with a smile that was more like a baring of teeth, and Koro-sensei rubbed two tentacles together in excitement.

“All- _right!_ It’s settled, then.” Koro-sensei declared. “Everyone else, please help remove the dummies and then evacuate the area.”

As the class dispersed, following their teacher’s instructions, Nagisa stripped off the outer layers of his stealth suit. Shivering a bit in the cold with only a thermal shirt and thin leggings to protect him, he handed his clothes off to Sugino, who in return passed him the _actual astronaut suit_ that he was meant to change into.

Sugino gave him a concerned once over as Nagisa spent a moment just absorbing the astounding fact that he was about to see a sight that almost no one else on the planet would be privileged enough to see in their whole lifetime.

“Are you gonna be okay up there with him?” Sugino asked when Nagisa made no move to put on the suit, frowning a bit. “Not too late to back out.”

 “No,” Nagisa replied, shaking off the persistent feeling of awe. “No, just help me put this on. I’m ready.”

Sugino helped Nagisa into the suit with no small amount of struggle; Nagisa had never realized just how many layers, fasteners, and zippers went into a space suit. Cradling the helmet underneath his left armpit, Nagisa turned to Karma with a slightly shaky smile.

“Ready to go?” he asked.

Karma slung a heavy arm over Nagisa’s shoulders and steered them towards the ladder with a jaunty, “Yeah, let’s do this!”

Sitting in his seat, strapped tightly against the back and with Karma strapped similarly securely just three inches away, Nagisa felt sweat gather at the back of his neck.

“You know,” Nagisa said as the automated voice began its countdown, “I sort of feel like we’ve experienced this kind of anxiety before.”

He thought of the way that Karma had looked at him just days ago – with disgust, with recrimination. He had been scum to Karma in that moment, and Nagisa’s heart had frozen over to protect his feelings from the harsh environment of real life.

“Yeah,” Karma replied, “but the two of us have changed a bit since then.”

As the countdown slogged from _five_ to _one_ , Nagisa attempted to turn towards his friend, but he found himself unable to move his head much due to the sheer size of the helmet and the tightness of the seatbelts. Before he could get too concerned, though, Nagisa felt a light touch against the back of his hand. Out of the corner of his eye, he could _just_ see Karma’s fingers resting on top of his; smiling to himself as his breathing slowed, Nagisa turned his hand over and tangled their fingers together.

Abruptly, Nagisa’s stomach fell through his shoes, the floor, and the Earth, seemingly, as the rocket took off, pushing him back into his seat. Nagisa felt his finger bones grind together as Karma gripped him as tightly as he could and Nagisa returned the favor just as voraciously.

“Wow!” a muffled voice said. “This is really fast!”

Nagisa’s heart skipped a beat as he realized that the voice was that of their esteemed teacher. “Why the heck did you follow us, Koro-sensei?!”

A short silence followed, and then Koro-sensei said at a quieter volume, “I was just kind of worried…”

Karma snickered a little bit at that, but Koro-sensei quickly continued, “Don’t get too caught up in retrieving data! Make sure you enjoy your once-in-a-lifetime trip to space!”

Nagisa bit his lip, thinking about how important this trip really was to him. If there were any possible way to save Koro-sensei’s life and Nagisa didn’t do everything he could to find that way, then there was no way he could count himself as Koro-sensei’s student at graduation.

“Koro-sensei…Let me just say this,” Nagisa said, clearing his throat awkwardly. His sense of sound was fading as the altitude increased. “You’ve used the life you’ve been given to give _us_ more opportunities to learn, and I’m so grateful for that. But to us, your life is worth more than just teaching material.”

Koro-sensei said something else, but the roar of the takeoff and the high pressure made it impossible to make out. Karma squeezed his hand, saying confidently, “He heard you.”

Nagisa couldn’t suppress a slightly teary grin when he realized that their teacher was gone because the rocket had reached Mach 23 just as Ritsu-san had said it would; for the first time since the auspicious start to Class E’s school year, they’d surpassed Koro-sensei.

It was only a few minutes later that they passed through the stratosphere. Through the tiny window before them, Nagisa could see the Earth curving away from them at a rapid pace as the familiar cerulean sky faded away into the black void.

“Wow,” Nagisa breathed as the clouds shrunk below them. “It’s beautiful.”

Karma laughed breathlessly in response. “Yeah, it really is.”

Nagisa squeezed Karma’s hand again, since he had no way to meet his eyes. “I’m glad that you’re the one I’m sharing it with,” he said quietly.

“Me too,” Karma answered as the rocket began to slow down. “This is the long part; you might want to get some sleep.”

Gazing out at the broad expanse of space that was opening up around them, Nagisa nodded to himself until his eyes eventually fell shut.

“-gisa!” Karma hissed. “Wake up.”

Nagisa jolted in his seat, surprised to see Karma kneeling on the ground between his legs, once again stripped to his skin-tight black thermal shirt and loose blue pants. He blinked dumbly at the sight of Karma _quite literally_ on his knees before him, hands resting atop Nagisa’s thighs.

“Wha-?” Nagisa mumbled, reaching up to rub at his eyes and encountering the plastic bubble surrounding his head.

“We’ll hit the ISS in about 4 minutes,” Karma explained, beginning to fumble impatiently with the buckles holding Nagisa’s body firmly in place against the seat. “I wanted to let you sleep, but we have to follow through with Phase 2.”

Nagisa’s half-awake brain snapped into full consciousness at that point, and embarrassment tinted his cheeks pink as Karma’s fingertips brushed against his lower abdomen. “I-I got it,” he replied, gently batting away Karma’s questing fingers.

Once he was freed, Nagisa stood on slightly wobbly legs, removing his helmet. Before he could reach for his back to try and unzip the body of the outfit, though, Karma’s hands were landing on his shoulders as he leaned in close to Nagisa’s ear, whispering, “ _I_ got it.”

As his friend’s warm breath rushed over the shell of his ear, Nagisa was forced to tamp down an abrupt rush of arousal, but Nagisa’s likely _very_ obvious shiver failed to stop Karma from pulling the zipper down _excruciatingly_ slowly, trailing the fingertips of his other hand down Nagisa’s back as he did so. Nagisa remained completely frozen when Karma’s hands slowed to a stop at the small of Nagisa’s back, mere millimeters from the swell of his butt.

Cold air suddenly rushed over Nagisa’s back as Karma stepped away, taking his body heat with him. Moving around Nagisa to meet his gaze, Karma asked, “You can take the rest off yourself, right?” with a completely straight face. But the heat in his eyes refused to die.

Ever since that fated conflict, which had somehow ended in reconciliation and a closer relationship than they had ever had before, Nagisa had become uncomfortably aware of his attraction to Karma. Moreover, he’d become distinctly aware of _Karma’s_ attraction to _Nagisa_. But they’d been so busy over the past few days; they hadn’t had any time alone. So they’d been dancing around each other -  at school, with lingering touches, and over text, with thinly veiled euphemisms.

As he looked out of that tiny window into the vast expanse of the universe, Nagisa thought, _I don’t think it gets any more alone than this_.

Averting his eyes at the path his thoughts were taking, Nagisa shrugged off the rest of the suit, exposing his bare shoulders to the slightly chilly air. Karma offered him a strained smile that seemed to promise everything and nothing at once, and then he turned to look out the window as Nagisa disrobed. Once he was finished, clad only in his cargo pants, combat boots, and a thin, black tank top, Nagisa and Karma worked quickly to strap the empty suits back into their recently vacated seats.

The clicks and hisses of their vehicle aligning with the entrance to the space station reached Nagisa’s ears, and he and Karma settled in against the wall on either side of the port, waiting for an astronaut to approach. The moment that the man’s fingers passed the threshold, Nagisa and Karma descended upon him, drawing their Anti-Sensei knives and the fake bomb Sugaya had put together.

“Oh, hey!” Karma said as he held the man in a chokehold with a knife to his neck. “You’re Mizui – I’ve seen you on TV! What’s up, man?”

“ _Hello,_ ” Nagisa greeted the other astronauts who approached them, using the best English he could muster. They’d agreed that Nagisa’s size and demeanor made him less threatening, so the task of negotiation fell mainly to him. The gravity of the situation – this was, after all, very, _very_ illegal, and the bald man standing before him looked as though he could snap Nagisa like a twig – was not lost on him, and he was hard-pressed to remember the words he was supposed to be saying. “ _We have a bomb._ ”

The men recoiled, their faces immediately growing angry and frightened. Before they could begin talking over him, Nagisa continued, “ _If possible, we want to settle this peacefully. We just want to talk, so please back up._ ”

The bald man’s eyebrows twitched and his mouth pulled into a snarl, but he floated backwards nonetheless. So Nagisa and Karma moved into the space station proper, with Nagisa making sure he kept a tight grip on his leverage and his knife and a looseness in his limbs. Nagisa counted five men before them, and he couldn’t be sure that they wouldn’t try to pull something.

“ _It’s awfully cramped in here,_ ” Karma said, prompting Nagisa to look over at him using his peripheral vision. “ _Let’s chat somewhere where we have a little more room_.”

Nagisa and Karma followed the men through the space station, doing their best to focus on carrying out the plan rather than marveling at the fact that they were _in the International Space Station_ , and after less than a minute, the eight of them (including Karma’s dubious hostage) were floating in a circle in the middle of a larger room. Nagisa swallowed as he met the tired, wary eyes of the people before him. Even with everything his mother had put him through over the past few years – no, _especially_ with everything his mother had put him through – Nagisa had never felt more like a child than he did in this moment.

As Nagisa faltered, the words he was meant to say sticking in his throat, Karma whispered to him, “Do your best!” Nagisa glanced over at him, and Karma winked at him, forming half of a heart with the hand not holding his Anti-Sensei knife.

Nagisa felt warmth suffuse his chest at the gesture, and he exhaled a little laugh at the levity Karma had provided. _Do your best,_ he repeated to himself. _That’s all you can do._

“ _My name is Shiota, and this is Akabane. We are students from Kunugigaoka Junior High School in Tokyo, Japan. Our teacher is a big yellow octopus man, and he’s the one who blew up the moon._ ”

Given the situation, the time constraints, and the fact that they didn’t know what level of security clearance these men had, the class had collectively decided that it would be best to give the astronauts the restricted version of the truth.

“ _Our class has been tasked with killing our teacher by the end of the school year, or he will blow up the Earth too. We haven’t done it yet. But we believe that the American team here has some research about antimatter that we can use…to our advantage. Our teacher and our class have worked together to assemble a plan of action in order to get a copy of this research, so here we are._ ”

A few seconds ticked by in silence.

“ _So…that’s all. Please let us copy the American team’s research data. That’s our only demand,_ ” Nagisa finished quietly, trying not to let his voice shake.

Karma piped up, _“I’m sure you know this by now, but our teacher is a monster. If you say no to our request and we come back without completing our goal, who knows what he’ll do down on Earth?_ ”

The five men looked at each other, faces impenetrable walls of non-emotion. Nagisa felt his heart race a little bit faster as the silence continued.

 _No manual could have prepared them for a situation like this, but…they are professional astronauts, after all,_ Nagisa thought ruefully to himself, doing his best to appear calm. _Whether it’s negotiation or combat, I’m sure they’ll be formidable opponents._

“ _First off,_ ” the bald man said in smooth, drawling English. “ _I’d like to give you two daredevils a good ol’ bravo._ ”

He clapped slowly, and the four men around him followed suit. Nagisa swallowed as the atmosphere in the room grew cold and intimidating.

“ _But,_ ” the man continued with a slow, confident grin as the sarcastic applause faded back into silence. “ _Some of us six are soldiers, y’know. Do you really think you stand a chance against_ us _?_ _That_ bomb _of yours ain’t even a threat. Know why?_ ”

Suddenly, malice seeped from every corner of the spacecraft. Darkness and malevolence descended from the ceiling and settled over Nagisa like a thick, suffocating blanket. Nagisa struggled to breathe around the knot of fear lodged in his throat.

“ _All of us came here to do life-threatening experiments – ones where you never know if something’s gonna blow up_ ,” the man growled.

Nagisa settled into a battle stance, unwilling to let his apprehension betray him. The tension in the air was too thick to be cut – especially considering that their knives were basically made of rubber.

 _We’re screwed_ , Nagisa thought a bit frantically.

“ _But let’s try to avoid conflict_ ,” the man continued with a small, much less malicious smile. “ _After all, this is pretty much the worst place ever to start a fight._ _Let Mr. Mizui go, and we’ll talk._ ”

Nagisa and Karma exchanged a look – Karma’s imploring, Nagisa’s affirming – and Karma released his chokehold on the poor man without a second thought. Nagisa trusted that these men were no longer of a mind to attack them, and Karma trusted Nagisa’s judgment.

Mizui gasped for air as he floated back towards his friends. Once he had caught his breath again, he choked out, “ _Even if you do steal the data, how will you get home? You can’t get safely back to Earth without Mission Control’s help. Or did you ask for their help when you hijacked them_?”

Nagisa smiled as he brandished his phone, showing the dubious men before him Ritsu’s smiling face. “ _We can get back on our own. Our A.I. classmate has perfectly calculated the return trajectory. And if we need any small changes, our teacher can do that in midair._ ”

A dark-skinned man who had kept quiet so far spoke up, sounding nervous and uncomfortable. “ _But that’s far too reckless_! _The ship you came up on is only a test vessel – there were no guarantees that it would perform perfectly._ ”

The taller, lanky man beside him nodded. “ _Maybe it’s ‘cause you’re young, but don’t you think you’re taking your own lives too lightly?_ ”

Nagisa averted his eyes, reflexively thinking of how Koro-sensei had said nearly the same words so long ago, during that first day of class. Back then, he had been so terrified of and terrorized by his mother. There hadn’t been a single thought in his mind, then, besides the words _end it all you’ll feel better just end it you have to you won’t feel anything anymore_ –

But…now, his mother recognized his needs, his _rights_ as a human. Now, he had people he cared for back in his life. Kayano was worth living for. Sugino was worth living for. _Koro-sensei_ was worth living for.

Karma…

Karma was…

“ _Hey,_ ” Karma cut in, hip cocked impertinently somehow despite the lack of gravity. “ _It’s not like I’m here because I want to be. I’m just here ‘cause someone I care about said I should come._ ”

“Karma…” Nagisa said on an exhale, a little shocked.

 _Karma is worth_ dying _for._

Nagisa’s swallow clicked in his throat. Karma looked over at him with his usual smirk, but his eyes were soft.

“ _Speaking of life,_ ” he continued, “ _I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately._ ”

He looked down at his Anti-Sensei knife, smile fading at the edges into something more sad and regretful. “ _And that’s because we’re students in a class where we have to kill our teacher._ ”

Nagisa let his gaze fall from Karma’s face to where his fingers wrapped around his own dagger. Like it did every once in a while, the chill of awareness that he was holding a tool designed _solely_ to hurt, to maim and kill, someone rushed down his spine like the touch of Death itself. It wasn’t a role he took lightly or ever truly felt comfortable with – and that’s why he was here in the first place.

“ _When we confront a life, we have to do it with our own lives,_ ” Karma said, tone grave. “ _That’s the resolve we’ve acquired._ ”

Lifting his head with all of the dignity and grace of an ancient emperor looking over his people, Karma said, “ _Isn’t it the same thing for you?_ ”

Nagisa shivered involuntarily.

The bald man seemed to feel the intensity in the air too, lowering his eyes for a few moments before he answered. “ _You look like you trust this plan that your teacher came up with, so…I’ll cave. As the current commander of the ship, I’ll give in to your demands._ ”

Turning his head to the right to address one of his team members, he barked, “ _Get the data ready!_ ”

“ _One more thing, though –_ “ the man continued. “ _You’ll need to help us load and unload some supplies. If you wanna to get out of here quickly, you’ll have to work hard for the privilege._ ”

Nagisa met Karma’s gaze, holding back a grin at their success.

“ _Let’s get to it!_ ” the man said, reaching out to clap Karma on the shoulder.

“ _That’s the data from the experiments on preventing the superbeing from exploding,”_ the man said as Karma looked over the data on the computer.

It was all incomprehensible to Nagisa, but Karma seemed satisfied by what he saw, plugging Nagisa’s phone into the laptop via USB cable.

“No evidence of falsification detected!” Ritsu chirped from the tiny LCD of Nagisa’s iPhone. “Presence of full data on relevant experiments confirmed. Copying and borrowing now.”

The phone screen flickered to black as Karma and Nagisa temporarily lost connection with their class; Ritsu needed to focus all of its energy on the information transfer in order to expediate the process.

As they waited for the transfer to complete, Karma nudged Nagisa gently with his shoulder. When Nagisa looked over at him, a complaint on the tip of his tongue as he started to float away, Karma grabbed him by the wrist with a tiny, amused smile.

“You know, you did a really good job today,” Karma said in Japanese. The man looked between them in confusion before rolling his eyes, apparently deeming the conversation unimportant. “It was kind of hot seeing you take charge like that.”

Nagisa felt heat creep into his cheeks at that, and Karma just laughed at him. “ _Karma!_ ” he snapped in response, trying to convey anger to cover up his pleased embarrassment. “He’s _right there_.”

“What does it matter? He can’t understand what we’re saying,” Karma replied with a self-satisfied smirk. “He has no idea how badly I want to kiss you right now.”

Nagisa swallowed again, feeling weak in the face of Karma’s full, undivided attention. Unbidden, his gaze fell to the unrepentant curve of Karma’s lips.

“Transfer complete!” Ritsu said abruptly.

Nagisa found himself sagging (and tipping forward) as Karma released his wrist and turned back to the computer.

 _There’s_ definitely _going to need to be a conversation about this soon._

Karma wasted no time in removing the cable and the phone, so they were ready to leave in a few short minutes. “Let’s head home and take a look at this,” Karma said, handing the phone back to Nagisa.

Nagisa smiled a bit nervously back at him and tucked the phone into his pocket. “Yeah. I guess there’s no reason to dawdle any longer.”

“ _By the way, gramps,_ ” Karma said, tossing the fake bomb over to the astronaut, who looked over in surprise as it floated harmlessly through the air towards him. “ _You can have this; it’s a gift from our teacher. It’s just a packet of sweet bean jelly, but go ahead and tell your bosses that you couldn’t resist because we threatened you with a real bomb, okay?_ ”

The man’s jaw dropped, and Nagisa rubbed the back of his neck, bowing his head in apology. “ _We’re really very sorry for bothering you!_ ”

“ _At least you got to kill some time, right?_ ” Karma said, snickering a little bit.

Then, the two of them turned back towards the exit of the station that would take them back to their rocket. “ _We’ll need you to operate the robot arm,_ ” Karma continued a bit flippantly as they crossed the threshold for the last time.

“ _You guys are quite the adventurers!_ ” the bald man said with a slightly exasperated smile.

“ _Feel free to visit us up here any time you like,_ ” another one of the astronauts said. “ _but do it legally, you get me?_ ”

Nagisa laughed at the man’s stern tone. Karma pressed the button to begin shutting the door, replying, “ _I think just this once will be enough for me. But instead, I’ll do my best to increase spending on space exploration once I become someone of power and influence._ ”

“ _Lookin’ forward to it!_ ” the man replied, and the whole team began to wave as the door locked shut before them.

Once they were alone in the silent room, Karma looked meaningfully at Nagisa. “Have a good time?” he asked.

“Uh…yeah,” Nagisa replied with a small smile. “Of course! That was a once-in-a-lifetime experience.”

Karma shrugged and maneuvered himself closer. “I suppose,” he conceded, reaching out for Nagisa’s hand. “but I know what could make it better.”

As their fingers tangled together and Karma offered him a soft, reassuring smile, Nagisa felt a certain unacknowledged tension in his limbs fade away. Karma moved in close, pressing their foreheads together so that they were close enough to share each others' breath.

“What?” Nagisa breathed.

“Making out,” Karma replied, cupping Nagisa’s face with a gentle touch. “in zero-G.”

When they came together, it wasn’t explosive; it wasn’t a revelation. It felt, instead, like remembering something that was long lost. As Karma’s lips settled over his, as Karma’s hand pressed incessantly against the small of his back, as Karma’s soft red hair tickled across his forehead, Nagisa felt a familiar warmth and joy suffuse his body.

Nagisa smiled into the kiss, and Karma leaned down to press his mouth underneath his jaw in a series of soft, warm kisses that left Nagisa sighing. Wanting to reciprocate, Nagisa pulled back and tangled one hand in Karma’s hair. Meeting Karma’s gaze as best as he could, Nagisa tugged Karma’s head back and scraped his teeth over Karma’s _nodobotoke_.

Karma trembled, and his hand slipped down to grasp Nagisa’s butt, surprising a small laugh out of him. Following his unspoken cue, Nagisa wrapped his legs around Karma’s waist, locking them together and pressing certain… _parts_ of Nagisa against certain parts of Karma.

Karma rocked his hips up, and Nagisa gasped at the sudden pressure and slight discomfort created by his zipper. “That’s – “

Karma effectively cut Nagisa off by licking into his mouth, effortlessly cradling Nagisa’s body against his own with one hand under his butt and another hand against the middle of his back thanks to the lack of gravitational pull. It didn’t take long before Nagisa was holding onto Karma as tightly as he could, struggling to anchor himself in the whirlwind of their conjoining.

Karma pulled away eventually, cheeks slightly pink, hair tousled, and pupils wide and dark.

 _Beautiful,_ Nagisa thought to himself.

“What do you want?” Karma said, his voice a little bit lower than usual. His fingers stroked idly back and forth over Nagisa’s spinal column, providing calm and reassurance.

Nagisa swallowed and hoped that his inexperience wasn’t too obvious. Then again, Karma probably knew that Nagisa hadn’t had sex – or even done _anything_ , really - with anyone else before him, so it was probably best to be honest.

“I don’t know,” Nagisa said truthfully, looking at Karma’s chin as he found it difficult to meet his eyes. “I just want us to both feel good, I guess.”

Karma’s mouth lifted into his usual mischievous smile, and he leaned in for a gentle peck. “I can do that.”

They quickly found that microgravity made it very hard to touch each other with any amount of pressure; every press of Nagisa’s fingers against Karma’s shoulders amounted to Karma floating away with a tiny pout on his face.

Suffice to say, the whole event was suffused with good-natured laughter.

After a while, Karma said, “I guess I should have seen this coming,” and Nagisa couldn’t help but burst out into raucous laughter at the slightly-amused-but-mostly-disgruntled look on his face.

“It’s okay,” Nagisa replied with an embarrassed grin, no doubt, taking up residence on his face. “If we do it at your house instead, we don’t have to worry about the whole class accidentally listening in.”

Karma groaned, covering his face, and Nagisa just continued, “Speaking of, you’re up, Ritsu.”

Several moments of silence followed Nagisa’s declaration, and both Nagisa and Karma turned awkwardly to face the computer which Ritsu was currently occupying.

“Ritsu?” Nagisa repeated, worry crawling up his throat.

The map depicting their landing suddenly flashed to life on the computer screen, and Ritsu spoke up, sounding distant, “Leave it to me. I’ve made innumerable trajectory calculations to land us safely on Earth. This spaceship may as well be my own body.”

Nagisa exchanged a curious glance with Karma.

“Additionally, the numerous sensors on the ship…can perceive so many more things than I ever could before -external temperature, pressure, speed, surroundings, Nagisa…Karma…even your breaths, conversations, heart rate, and body temperature.”

Nagisa felt the blood drain from his face as Ritsu pushed forward, saying, “I can think…move…and _feel_ so many things. How wonderful – I can tell firsthand that this mission made my intelligence evolve further.”

Its voice, which had been so vague and toneless up until now, suddenly became warm and soft. “Hey, guys…I think I might be self-aware of ‘emotions’ for the first time.”

Nagisa just hoped that Ritsu was too distracted by experiencing emotions to notice what he and Karma had just been up to.

“I feel so happy… _so_ happy that I got to come to Class E,” Ritsu finished gently, and despite the awkwardness, he couldn’t help but smile.

“We’re happy to have you, too. Ritsu.” Nagisa said with genuine appreciation. “None of this would have been possible without you.”

There was a short pause before Ritsu replied, “Thank you, Nagisa-kun. You really don’t know how much that means to me. Now, buckle up, you two - it’s about to get intense!”

Nagisa and Karma made their way over to the seats and buckled themselves in.

“Hey,” Karma said under his breath, though they both knew that Ritsu would hear everything. Nagisa turned to face him. “None of this would have been possible without _you_ , either. Even I can admit that much.”

Nagisa felt his cheeks grow a bit warm, but he tried to cover it up by replying with a laugh, “Coming from you, that’s practically a declaration of love.”

Karma smiled enigmatically and didn’t say anything in response.

Nagisa swallowed.

 _Well,_ he thought to himself, _we_ are _up here in space, gathering intel so we can stop the manhunt for our teacher who may or may not blow up the entire planet, after all. I guess anything’s possible._

 


End file.
